FTC v. Qualcomm case scheduled for January 4, 2019

Judge Lucy Koh, who presides over District Court in San Jose, has filed a schedule for how the Federal Trade Commission’s suit against chipmaker Qualcomm will proceed. The commission alleges that the company engaged in anti-competitive behavior, leveraging its “monopoly” on the semiconductors industry to prevent clients from buying from other producers of systems-on-a-chip.

The schedule, as obtained by FOSS Patents, protracts the fact-finding process for about a year through the end of March, 2018. The trial will take place starting January 4, 2019, and will last for 8 days. The site’s Florian Mueller reports that Qualcomm proposed three more months for fact-finding. Judge Koh’s timeline aligns more with the FTC’s proposal.

Qualcomm reported earnings for its second quarter this week, reporting an 8 percent annual rise in revenues to $6 billion and a 28 percent net income gain to $2 billion. In addition to the current lawsuit by the FTC, Apple is engaged in litigation against Qualcomm in the US and China.

Koh is also charged with overseeing the six-year-old Apple v. Qualcomm case that is making its way back to her court.

Jules Wang is News Editor for Pocketnow and one of the hosts of the Pocketnow Weekly Podcast. He came onto the team in 2014 as an intern editing and producing videos and the podcast while he was studying journalism at Emerson College. He graduated the year after and entered into his current position at Pocketnow, full-time.